sudan SEND team

December 07, 2008

In March of this year, I traveled with a team of four other people to the village of Gondolo, just south of Yabus, hear the Ethiopian border in the southern Blue Nile District. We went to work on classrooms for Hope School, and you can read more about it by clicking on the Sudan SEND Team link to the left.

In September of this year, Lori Hofmeister went to that same school to work with the teachers there. We just received an email update from her where she talks about what it was like to celebrate Thanksgiving in Sudan and what it is like to be the only non-Ganza who has ever learned to speak their language.

She also posted some video on YouTube and her blog, which shows snippets of what it is like to be welcomed into the Ganza community, teach in their school, and worship in their church. They are way cool. Enjoy.

June 23, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the twelfth and last.Greetings from Wisconsin, where
the evening is a perfect 65 degrees, the fireflies have just appeared,
and half of the 3 billion mosquitoes that hatched on Friday are banging
up against our screen door and begging to be let in.

Why is it that accomplishment is so important to Americans?

My
journal entry from the Saturday we were in Gondolo says, "We are now
taking our afternoon slow down. There is still no need for me to work
on the school. When they get to the bamboo work, I will be needed. This
is such a different experience for me. I am used to efficiency and hard
work and deadlines. But what we agreed to in our covenant was that the
building was the skeleton we were going to use to build relationships.
It would appear that God is giving that to us. It may be that part of
the reason I'm here is to learn to be content without what passes for
success in my culture."

Later that week I found myself wondering, "How is it
that one measures accomplishment in relationships?
How can we know if we have been successful at relating? If quality is the variable with the highest value, are we doomed to adjusting relationship scope and relationship
time indefinitely? What is the deliverable and when can we close out
the project?"

The
afternoons in Gondolo were unbearably hot and we took to taking our
mats outside so we could rest in the shade of the only structure
without sides - a sort of community conversation area. One day, I was
the first one out there and dozing off when I heard Dorin calling my
name with quite a bit of urgency. "Georgia, come! Georgia, come quick!"
Now. I had been telling everyone I met that I wanted to get cool
pictures of bugs in Sudan in the hopes of having one of them published
in my company's 2009 Critter Calendar. So when Dorin and Claudiu saw an
enormous walking stick hiding in the rafters of the Taj Mahal, their
first thought was to get me and my camera in front of it.

The Perfect PhotoAt
first I went mostly to humor them, but when I saw the creature, I knew
I had to get the perfect photo of it. I own a Nikon D70 that has become
an extension of my hand. When I'm working with it, I can't tell where
it ends and I begin. But it was in a mood that day. And so was I. And I
wasn't getting the photo I wanted. By then, Darrell had joined us and
while I was the one with my finger on the trigger; the previewing and
deciding was a group effort. I took 10-15 photos that we all agreed
were not calendar-worthy.

Then began the trouble-shooting. Was it the lens? The settings? The
light? Maybe it was the distance. After all, the creature was in the
roof. Maybe I was too far away. So we looked around for something for
me to stand on and grabbed the nearest suitable object - our still
unopened screen tent. The height was perfect. As I stood up on it and was getting my camera focused, I felt the whole thing begin
to shift back and forth in protest. Apparently unopened screen tents
are not the stablest of footstools. I announced that if I fell, they
were to save my camera first. Each agreed, showing you just how well
they had come to know me.

By now, we were all invested in getting a photo of this creature.
Darrell supported my back so I wouldn't fall that direction and Dorin
and Claudiu stood on either side of me, giving advice and stabilizing
the tent box. At this point I had a hold of Darrell's Canon in addition
to my Nikon. Shooting with the Canon was like shooting with a
prosthetic, but I caught on and the photo that eventually made all of
us happy was taken with the Canon.

It was an accomplishment. A very satisfying accomplishment. But not
just because we had taken a perfect picture. Somehow,
through the power of relationship, an individual goal had become a
shared goal.

I don't know if that is how it will end up being with the schools,
but I hope so. When we left, we truly did leave a skeleton. We were not
able to finish even one building. But if it turns out that we began
relationships which will last for eternity, then God gave us what we
most wanted, did He not?

June 16, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the eleventh.

Greetings from Wisconsin where we don't want any dumb old nice weather anyway.

There
was enough of a break in the rain, lightening, hail, and floods to
allow us to take some delightful outdoor pictures after my oldest son's
graduation on Saturday. It's been a busy week but we made it. And he
made it. And I have thought a great deal about what it must feel like
to be a young man at the very beginning of your life and looking ahead
to what seems like an endless future.

Before I continue, I have a message for those of you who are of the
14 year-old male persuasion and who might be reading this. If you want your
future to include a long, healthy, prosperous and relatively peaceful
life; and your mother comes home from a long day at work and your
chores are not done, do not under any circumstances, explain to her that it is because you are tired.

We are all tired. Really...we are. If we are willing to admit it to
each other. Isaiah 40:30-31 says, "Even youths shall faint an be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

In Sudan, my team included two young Romanian men whom I came to
love and respect deeply. I want to tell you a little bit about each of
them.

Their names are Dorin and Claudiu and they came to
Gondolo with an enthusiasm that was both contagious and encouraging. I
loved listening to them pray. In fact...so much so that I found myself
inventing reasons why we needed to pray more often than we did. They
used a word that sounded like the Latin "domini". After hearing it so
many times I asked what it meant and Dorin told me that it simply meant
"Lord". Once I knew that, it was almost as if I could understand their
prayers.

Dorin is a nurse and he is unmarried. He feels the call of
God to be an evangelist. He is a deep thinker and was the less
talkative of the two, even though he was the one with the best English.
In his medicine bag, he had all number of items to restore comfort to
the sick or injured. Luckily he didn't have to deal with anything
serious; however, I did take him up on his offer of allergy medicine.
He also had quite a cache of colorful band-aids and once that was
discovered, every cut absolutely, positively had to have one or two.

Claudiu is a construction worker and he has been married for
two years and it head-over-heels in love with his wife. At first, he
relied on Dorin to translate for him. But he had so much on his heart
that he wanted to communicate, that he began to force himself to speak
English more and more. He loved Gondolo and every time he would look
around at the landscape, he would see it for what it could be in the
future.

What does it mean to work hard?Tonight on my walk I happened to notice a vanity plate that said,
"WRKDHRD". Walked past. Registered meaning in brain. Stopped. Turned
around to determine what model of car would justify such a confession.
It was a Ford Explorer. Now forgive me for saying this, but I don't
think that plate belongs on that car. Not that I don't think the guy
(and you know it is a guy) works hard; I'm sure he does. I just don't
get why he wants to advertise that he worked hard for a Ford Explorer.
A Hummer, maybe. A Mercedes, almost certainly. An Aston
Martin V12 Vanquish, without a doubt. But a Ford Explorer? And is there
any other country in the world whose citizens find the non-explicit
communication of success inadequate? If so, please don't tell me.

Okay..so...people all over the world work hard. Most of them harder than you or I
do - even with our full time jobs and families and harder than our
friend with the Ford Explorer. Most of the time that work speaks only
to a few who see it, participate in it and benefit from it. And this
was the case with Dorin and Claudiu.

Both
Claudiu and Dorin loved Sudan (in spite of the hardships) and loved the
people there. Shortly after we arrived, it became apparent that the
local workers were going to need a lot more direction than we had been
prepared to give them. We also found that we did not have all the
materials we needed and that what we did have was often inadequate and
difficult to use. There were heavy, awkward posts that had to be placed
in the hard, dry soil and anchored so that they would stand firm and be
able to support the weight of the roof. It obviously was not going to
be an easy or pleasant job, but everyone rolled up their sleeves and
got to work - well, except me. But I got some great pictures.

When you have spent the morning heaving large objects into the
earth, lentils and rice doesn't sound so bad. Immediately after lunch,
both of these young men popped out of their chairs and started back out
to the building site. When asked why, one of them said, "We have given
the men some homework. Now we need to go see how everything is going."
(Note: You'll need to add the Romanian accent on your own.)

Toward the end of our trip, just before we left Gondolo, I realized
that if my son turned out like these two young men when he was
twenty-six, I would be so thankful.

June 01, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the tenth.

Greetings from Wisconsin where the weather has adopted a Proverbs 25:14 mindset.

Yesterday, in my very own driveway, with a large, hot-pink sign stuck
in the dirt next to my mail-box, a liter of Diet Mountain Dew on hand
for emergencies, and two ten year-old girls on the sidewalk selling
kool-aid, I held a garage sale. I put the ad on Craig's List a week
ago. For the last seven days, I've been looking forward to this weekend
with the same lack-of-anticipation I experienced buying our first
minivan. Now we have three (yes three) minivans and I'm nearly certain
that having a garage sale and three minivans all at once makes me a
Stepford Wife.

Okay...so this is what happens at garage sales. You round up
everything that you don't want anymore. It's the stuff that - if you
don't get rid of it - your kids will decide to use to test whether
"safe-and-sane" really means safe-and-sane. And once you have it all
in one spot, you put price tags on it. Still with me? Then, you haul
it outside (which is worse than having to shower in gym class), and
wait. And what people do is this. They drive up to your yard - at $4
per gallon - randomly gather armloads of your junk, and then - follow
me closely here - hand you a wad of cash. After which they carry all
of it back to their car all by themselves and drive away. No lie.

It is the most counterintuitive process I've ever seen in my life.
With every bundle of bills pushed into my hand, I had a familiar
feeling I couldn't quite place. I was watching people spend time, gas
and money to get a bargain. It was a paradox. Later it dawned on me
that life as a follower of Jesus is often a paradox as well. I am required to
move ahead in faith and trust not knowing whether or not everything
will be okay, yet knowing for certain that everything will be okay.
Today's story is like that.

You will never see the sun again...Ramadhan Chan
is an Elmbrook-supported missionary. Last week I told you about how he
got his name. This week I will tell you what he told us about his time
in Renk, his home town. I tried to record his words as accurately as I
could.

"During the 1980s, the government began to kill and imprison Christians in
the White Nile District. My wife, Mary, and I were living in Khartoum
at the time. In Renk, the churches closed and pastors who were not
killed went into hiding. A few other Christian men and I decided we
were going to go back to Renk and teach the gospel. Mary was worried.
I told her, 'People live and die every day in Khartoum. I could die
here just as easily as there. If you love me, you will let me go.' So
she agreed and was willing to let me go."

"We took the Jesus movies and showed them outdoors to anyone who
wanted to come. The response was enormous. We also began holding
youth meetings and preaching."

"Eventually the police found
out where I was staying, arrested me, and took me to prison where they
beat me. I was told I would never see the sun again. Their practice
was to come at 1:00 a.m., when it was dark and they would not be seen,
and get the prisoners who were to die. They would put them on a truck
and drive them to the river where they would either shoot the
prisoners, torture them to death, or put them in a sack and throw them
in the river."

"That night, as the soldiers were preparing to leave with their
truckload of doomed men; one of the soldiers, who had become a
Christian during the meetings, recognized me and said he would not let
the truck go while I was on it. The soldier's name was Samuel. As it
got closer to dawn, the rest of the soldiers realized they could not go
without being seen, so I and all the men on that truck were spared that
night. I was released and stayed in Renk to preach - moving from house
to house - until I felt I had finished what God wanted me to do there.
Then I left."

May 25, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the ninth.

Greetings from Wisconsin where any temperature above 70 degrees is accompanied by something unpleasant.

Do I talk too much?

The men on the team just seemed to think I talked so much. Little did they know. If I'd have brought my friend Rachel, now there
would have been some talking. But it's not only me. And it's not only
Rachel. Women - in general - talk more than men do. In general.

If you were to open up a woman's head, and I'm not for a moment
suggesting that you should; you would find a living, breathing mass of
words tripping all over each other and fighting to see which one could
escape first. And if you were to open up a man's head, you would find
maybe a dozen words, eleven of which would be holding on tightly to the
ankles of the single one that was considering making a run for it.

Why do I tell you this? Because of Ramadhan.

Ramadhan
Chan is an Elmbrook-supported missionary and a pastor in the Sudan
Interior Church. While we were together in Sudan, he told us some
amazing stories of God at work, which I transcribed as faithfully as I
could and which I will tell you over the next couple of weeks.

But first I have to tell you about me and Ramadhan and the lion.

Before
we arrived in Gondolo, the Koma and Ganza had built a grass hut for
us. It had five "rooms" and an open area in
the front with an entrance that was about six feet wide. On our first
day there, we set up our tents and picked out our rooms.

At that point, Darrell had - what to him - was a very entertaining
thought. He told Ramadhan he was going to put me right in front by the
entrance; because, if a lion came, I would weary it so much with my
talking that it would give up and go look for something else to eat.
For some reason, Ramadhan thought that was the funniest thing he had
ever heard. He laughed until he cried. This, of course, gave Darrell
no small sense of satisfaction. In fact, he was so insufferably
pleased with himself that he told the joke much more often than was
absolutely necessary. Every time, Ramadhan would laugh until I thought
his head was going to explode; which, in turn made Darrell laugh as
well. Even harder. Tragically. I'll tell you what. If a lion had
come, I'd have used as few words as possible to tell it exactly where
the both of them were - by name - and then I would have shut up and
stepped aside.

"Names are important in the Bible." I said this to someone once. He agreed.

Names are important in life. They
are important in our stories. Hearing our name is so common that we don't think
much of its significance. When someone
says, "Georgia",
they know me on some level. If they say
it so I can hear, we are in each other's presence, which differentiates that
person from billions of others. Names are used to begin and sustain relationships. No
relationship. No name. No name. No relationship.

Ramadhan
has a story about his name. He says, "In our culture, the mother's
mother is the one who names a child. I was named Ramadhan by my Muslim
grandmother because I was born in the month of Ramadhan. My father was
a Christian. If he wanted my name changed, he could, but he only had
40 days to do it. He was away and missed the deadline, so my name
stayed as it was. When I was older and became a Christian, I was able
change my name after I was baptized. The pastor said he would do it as
soon as he sent the baptism certificate. The certificate never came
and so I am still Ramadhan. I have come to see that having the name
Ramadhan makes it easy for me to work among Muslims. They are friendly
and welcoming and by the time the realize I am a Christian it's too
late. I have now decided that I will go to heaven with this name."

"I have now decided I will go to heaven with this name." I love
that. Nothing is wasted in God's economy. Not even a name that you
didn't think you wanted.

May 18, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the eighth.

Greetings from Wisconsin, the only
place in the world where they turn on the air conditioning when the
mercury hits 65 degrees.

In the book, "The Lion, The
Witch, and The Wardrobe", the children are talking to the Beaver family
(who are real beavers by the way) about a mysterious lion named Aslan
who is the rightful ruler of all Narnia. The children are
understandably nervous and ask Mr. and Mrs. Beaver if the lion is tame,
which they consider to be a ludicrous question. "Then he isn't safe?"
said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver
tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But
he's good."

What is safe?I've been thinking about safety recently. Two weeks ago, the same
day I almost burned the house down, I opened my email to see a subject
line with the words "aim air crash at doro" in it. In the very first
sentence of the message was the name of the pilot who had flown our
team out of Sudan.

Now, before I continue, may I interject a small request for those of
you who may need to forward news of this nature sometime in the
future. Please do not require your readers to scroll through multiple
photos of twisted wreckage before you tell them that no one was
seriously hurt.

And thankfully, no one was. You can read more about the accident here. I had the opportunity to talk to both of
the AIM Air pilots who flew us to and from Sudan. Their commitment to
and love for this isolated part of the world is humbling. They know it
is not always "safe" but they do it anyway.

Land MinesOne afternoon while we were at the SIM Compound in Yabus, we heard
an enormous explosion. Everything stopped for a few moments until
someone said, "That sounded like a land mine." The next day we learned
that was exactly what it was, and that it had been detonated
intentionally rather than accidentally. We were then warned by one of
the missionaries to stay on the roads and trails and not to go off into
the woods. It would not be safe.

In June of 2000, World Magazine published an article
about the Uduk tribe in the southern Blue Nile region, the same area
where our team lived and worked. Some of the leaders in Gondolo Church
and teachers in Hope School are Uduk. The article describes how
churches were destroyed and then land-mined so that they could not be
rebuilt and describes Sudanese Christians as having "the distinction of
being among the most persecuted believers in the world."

How
long does it take for ministry to become "safe" in places with this
kind of history? Do we only ever go places that are safe or do we
sometimes go simply because it is good for God's kingdom that we do?

Ramadhan ChanFor me, one of the best parts of this trip was getting to spend
time with Ramadhan, an Elmbrook-supported missionary and a leader in
the Sudan Interior Church. He had many stories to tell. In one, he
described his call by God to go from Khartoum to his hometown of Renk to preach the gospel of Jesus - an activity vigorously discouraged by the local government. His wife, Mary,
was understandably worried and they talked about it at length. She was
expecting a baby at the time, but decided to let him go after he said,
"People live and die every day in Khartoum. I could die here just as
easily as in Renk. I must live in obedience to God." He did go to
Renk and he was beaten and thrown in prison. If his captors had had
their way he would be dead now.

A Disciple's LifeA few weeks ago, Stuart Briscoe spoke on the passage in Acts
that tells the story of Stephen, known as the first martyr. He said this, "It's
highly unlikely that the majority of us will be called upon to die a
martyr's death. There's equally no question about it. Every single one
of us is called to live the disciple's life."

I have one more disciple story for you. A short distance to the
west of Yabus is a village named Doro, with a clinic. David Masters, a
doctor with many years experience in tropical medicine, and his wife, a
midwife, came to Doro just this year to train the medical staff at the
clinic there. While we were in Gondolo, we learned that he had become
sick in the middle of the night and died. We were told that they
thought it might be food poisoning. No one can say whether or not he
would have lived if he had been able to have access to more
sophisticated medical care. But because he was a disciple, living in
obedience, he didn't.

May 14, 2008

It's been four months since I've posted on this blog. I've been doing a ton of writing; I just haven't put any of it here. January was crazy, just as I said it would be. And then in early February, I became aware of an opportunity to travel to southern Sudan to work on a school building project. It seemed like something I should do. We left on March 21st and returned on April 6th. I worked until the day before we left and was right back at it the day after I returned. Life just started to feel like it was getting back to normal last week.

What a way to blow four months, eh?

Over the next few weeks, I will post some of my writings here and tell you more about Sudan and my team - composed of Americans, Romanians, and Sudanese. And return to writing about life and work. The photo above was taken by our pilot, Andy the morning we left to return to Kenya. He saw me with the camera and said, "You're a photographer. I'm a photographer too. Let me have the camera and take some photos of you. Otherwise you won't have any and no one will know you were here."

I posted an album of some of my favorite photos from Sudan. You have to scroll way to the bottom of the page to see it.

May 11, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the seventh.

Greetings from Wisconsin, where I've decided that talking about the weather isn't as much fun as I thought it would be.

This week I almost set my house on fire.

Monday morning, I got up, went for my walk, came
home, realized I'd forgotten to get the beans cooking for the chili
that night (please nobody write and ask me why I didn't use canned),
ran upstairs to shower, grabbed my computer, got halfway to the car
only to turn around and come back for my camera, and finally headed off
to work. About 4:30 that afternoon, I got a call from my son that
began, "Mo-om. Did you realize..."

It's been six days and the house still smells like the entire
family has a three-pack-a-day habit. More embarrassing...my kid's
teacher actually asked if he'd been smoking. I had to throw out the
apples that had been on the counter. All the clothes need to be
re-washed. Even the cat is mad at me.

So why do I tell you this? Because it's Mother's Day. And I know
that if you are a mom with kids at home and reading this, you are
probably juggling so many balls that it makes your head spin. First, if
this is your situation, thank you for taking the time to care
about Sudan every week. Second, I want you to know that whatever may
have happened this week that made you feel guilty, stressed, dumb, or
depressed; you are not the only one. Own it. Be free. And then have
a Happy Mother's Day. Now about Sudan.

You? Build a School??Today I want to tell you about the school in Gondolo. That was our
reason for going. Well, one of them anyway. And since children attend
school, it seems to me that Mother's Day is a good day for this
subject. So far, I've been hesitant to write about the school. Let me
tell you why.

I have a print on my desk that was created by Brian Andreas of The
Story People. It has a woman balancing precariously on something
unrecognizable and says, "I do much better as a goddess, since my
secretarial skills have always been limited." Substitute "construction"
for "secretarial" and you have a statement with which every member of
my team would agree. Actually, in order to get them to agree you'd
have to leave out the word "goddess" too. But we don't need to go
there.

As a kid, I could not build even a basic bridge with Tinker Toys.
I built stick people instead. As an adult, nothing has changed. When
told I was going on a construction project, one of my co-workers began
laughing out loud. "You can't plug in your computer," he said. "How
do you think you are going to be able to build a school?" The phrase
"I need direction" came out of my mouth more times during the one week
I was in Gondolo than it has the entire rest of my life combined. So
the reason I have not written about the school until now is because I
couldn't figure out how. I tried a couple of times and every time I
used the word "we" I felt like an impostor. So I will talk about the
school as it relates to the people. It will be just like being a kid
with Tinker Toys again.

But before I do that, I have to tell you that the men rocked at
construction. They did have difficulty with nails. They told me it
was because the timber was too hard, and I'm sure that must be true.
Even so, they were all experienced in the art of using wood to create
shape where before there had been nothing. When I wasn't doing what I
was told, I stepped back and took photos. As I watched them all
working together, including the Koma and Ganza men, it reminded me of
ballet. With sweat. And if you want to know any more than that, you
must speak to one of them, because I have now exhausted my knowledge of
the topic.

The day before we moved up to Gondolo, we drove out to look at the
property and the current school structures. The termites did their dirty deed
with gusto. The kids sit on stick benches.
It was sobering to me. An image of my daughter's classroom appeared in
my head and stayed right there next to the image of the HOPE School
classroom - like a split screen television.

I'll admit I had to do some processing when we got back to the SIM
Compound that evening. I was a teacher for five years, so it took
effort for me to absorb what I'd seen and weave it into my
understanding of what education is and should be.

As we were working on the school building, I related to the entire
structure as a mother. As I watched it take shape, I could see the
children walking in through the doorway, imagine them taking their
places on the benches, hear their voices repeat the lesson, and touch
their faces.

That Sunday in church, there was one woman sitting in front of me
with a sleeping baby in her lap. She was a member of the choir. I
tried not to be obvious, but I could hardly take my eyes off her. I
have sat in church holding each one of my babies exactly the same way.
I'm at the other end of that now, with one going off to college next
year, but I vividly remember their warm weight next to my chest and
wondering about their futures and what God might have in mind for them.

I understand the desire of every mother for her children to be all
that they can be. To find their potential. To be happy. To love and be loved.
I understand why one of the first things the leaders of this community
asked for was education for their children.

And it is why, for me, the biggest difficulty of being in Gondolo
for such a short time and working on a project like a school - was not
getting to see it finished. Not only that but also wondering and
caring about the future of the Koma and Ganza, and knowing I would not
be there long enough to experience any of it.

May 04, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the sixth.

Greetings from gorgeous, warm, sunny Wisconsin,

See. I don't complain about the weather all the time.

I'm
a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Contrary to widely accepted
opinion, this does not make me a literary lightweight. I've also read
Danielle Steel and the collected works of Jerry Garcia. Old West
romanticism and TV shows aside, the Ingalls family lived what we would
consider a difficult life. The bulk of that work fell on Caroline
Ingalls. This is still the situation for millions of women around the
world in what we often term, "developing countries." This is true also
in Gondolo, where our team served. More about this in a few paragraphs.

I was the only woman on the Gondolo team. (My compadre, Elizabeth Davis - who has an amazing story of her own to tell, was the only woman on the Otallo team
as well.) The fact that I was the lone female, out in the bush with a
bunch of men for a week, is what gets the biggest reaction from folks.
By far. I hear everything from "You go, girl!" to "What are you?
Nuts?"

Okay...so...most of us would accept it as an axiom that men and
women are fundamentally different. Basically, it's this. Women like to
talk. Men like to force large, heavy objects to conform to their will.
Whether the object is breathing or not makes no difference.

Knowing this, and having had a great deal of experience as the lone woman on a team
of men, I had one request of my maties before we left. In this
situation, I have found that when there are communication difficulties,
the men assume their way is the right one and it is the woman who needs
to be fixed. I asked, if possible, could we please not do it that way
this time. They agreed; but from that point on, one member of the team
(who shall remain nameless), lost few opportunities to voice his view
which was, men and women are not really that different. Did I also
mention that men tend to be more argumentative than women?

Now in Gondolo, I was useless at anything having to do with large
heavy objects. So during that time I took photos and wrote, which has
to substitute for quite a bit of conversation when you are with guys.
One thing I loved was to observe, greet, and take pictures of the
women. They all work so very hard. They carry all the water. They
cook. They haul wood and grass for buildings. They grind sorghum for
Ugali. They bear and raise children.

What if you had never seen your own reflection?One afternoon, I met up with a group of four women who were working
in our compound. I asked if they would like me to take their picture.
The oldest said no. She explained through an interpreter that her
clothes were not suitable. She and the others would come back on
Market Day, when they were dressed up to go to town. Sure enough, on
Market Day they reappeared in their best dresses so that I could take
their photograph. I did. And then showed it to them, as was my
custom. You could see their excitement as they recognized the other
women in their group. Then slowly but surely, each one realized there
was a woman in the photo whose face was unfamiliar. An instant later,
as it dawned on them that they were looking at their own image; their
eyes got wide, their laughter faded, and a sense of quite wonder came
over them. It was the first time for each of them to see themselves as
the others in their family and community had seen them.

The Sunday we were in Gondolo, Ramadhan Chan, our Sudanese teammate, asked me if
I would prepare a short message for the service. I agreed. I told the
story of Deborah from Judges 4 & 5. The lifestyle Deborah lived
3000 years ago is so very similar to the lifestyle of the women in
Gondolo - right down to the well, the donkeys, the blazing sun, the
lack of education, and - unfortunately - the perception of inferiority.

So,
what would women's ministry look like in Gondolo? I don't know how to
even begin to answer that question, but I believe it is one we need to
keep asking ourselves and asking ourselves and asking ourselves until
we begin to see a way to move forward. If we are to do that, the
voices of women need to be heard on all of our committees, in all of
our meetings, and on all of our mission trips.

I know I've
given the guys a little bit of a hard time in this email. In fairness,
I need to tell you the rest of the story. Before we left, my unnamed
friend asked several of the men if they would like to keep our camping
shower. They were very pleased and said yes. Then, not once, not
twice, but three times my teammate made them promise that the women
would be allowed to use it equally. How great is that? Most men would
not think to do this. I'm still not ready to say he's in touch with
his inner girl, but I do believe he is in touch with his inner cowgirl.

And what about me? On the last day, I was eating a greasy piece of
fried bread. Sounds icky, but tasted great. I had packed and had
nothing I could use to wipe my hands. What to do? Clearly the only
option was to wipe them up and down on my pants. Dorin looked at me
approvingly and said, "Now you are one of us. You are one of the guys."

April 27, 2008

When
I learned I'd be going to Sudan, I began a series of email newsletters to
my friends and family so that I could keep them updated, tell them the
stories of southern Sudan, and ask for their prayers. This is the fifth.

Greetings from rainy Wisconsin,

Many
years ago I read the journal of a woman who lived in the 1700s and she
began every day with a description of the weather. I always thought it
would be fun to try until I started it in these email updates. It is
impossible to make a habit of describing the weather in Wisconsin and
not sound like a whiner; because we don't ever actually have any good
weather here to report.

I'm ready to go back to Sudan. Yep.
You read that correctly. The only thing stopping me is my suitcase.
Every girl needs to have the right bag. I used this old trade show bag
of Bobb's because it weighed nothing and I was limited to 30 lbs on the
charter flight. I used it as a carry-on and since it had my camera and
lipstick in it...it was heavy. And it has this single nylon strap put
there by a sadist who knew it would cut into the shoulders of anyone
carrying it. Not a problem...I told myself. It will be in the
overhead bin most of the time. Who knew that British Airways was
going to dump us onto the tarmac at Heathrow, with five minutes (not
exaggerating here) to make our connection to Nairobi, and tell us to
run the two miles (exaggerating here a tad) to our next airplane?

This week I want to tell you about Johann and Chita. They are Uduk and they work and minister in Gondolo. I also bring you greetings from Jacob, another member of the church there.

Johann is a leader in the small congregation in Gondolo. He's not ordained in the SIC (Sudan
Interior Church) so he can't perform baptisms or give communion.

Chita is a teacher in HOPE School. We were told that there
are 280 students and three teachers. Both Chita and Johan worked hard
with us on the new classrooms. Then they would come and sit and talk
with us in the evening after the sun went down.

One evening we were debriefing and talking about some of our
frustrations...the work was going slowly, we were all having trouble
with heat, we didn't have all the supplies we needed, drinking our
water at 90-100 degrees was getting old, I had sun poisoning...and so
on.

When we were done, we asked the men who were with us about their
frustrations. We wanted to know if it had been hard to have us there.
Westerners can be pretty high maintenance by African standards.
American women are the most high maintenance of all, but I decided to
own that and wear it proudly.

Chita was flabbergasted by the question. His reply was that
it had been only wonderful to have us there. We were no trouble to
them at all. It helped them to know they had not been forgotten.

On our last day in Gondolo, both Johan and Jacob - another Christian there - gave us greetings from the Scripture to bring back to you.

This is the greeting Jacob chose from Scripture and asked us to bring back. It is from Gondolo Church. Eph. 6:21-24 - "So that
you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved
brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. I
have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we
are, and that he may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers,
and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love
incorruptible."

This
is the greeting Johann chose from Scripture and asked us to bring back. I Thessalonians 2:1-2 - "For you yourselves know,
brothers (and sisters), that our coming to you was not in vain. But
though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi,
as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of
God in the midst of much conflict."

The
community there expressed a strong desire not to be forgotten by us.
The verses they chose show that. A non-profit blog I read posted the
seven fundamental needs of people. Number one is to be seen and
heard. In other words, to not be forgotten.

Next week I will tell you about some of the women and what I learned from Deborah in Judges.